Truthfully, I'm really thinking about not following the NHL for awhile. I didn't really think I'd get this disappointed when the lockout went official since I think everyone saw the writing on the wall awhile ago but at 9pm tonight it really took the wind out of my sails, I can't believe were going through this again. I remember when people started talking about the CBA expiring I thought they will NEVER let that happen again but I guess I was wrong. I don't know maybe I need a few days but like I said I'm just really disappointed, at least football is here and I have been liking the NBA somewhat lately so maybe it won't sting as much as last time. But still

how bad is this gonna be for those American cities that can already barely support a team? Also, kill myself. are you kidding me, 2 lockouts in 10 years, and Bettman has to go..3rd time under his watch

Last time my boss came to me and said "we've got record profits, and I want to give you a lucrative, long term extension", I said to him "hold your horses, I don't think I am worth that much. Take some of that money back! I work out of the goodness of my heart".

Both sides were working within the rules of the CBA, which dictated the term and value of contracts. I don't think many people would argue the direction contracts were heading was good for the game, so there has to be a change.

Last time we lost a season because players wouldn't accept a salary cap. We wound up with a salary cap. This time players don't want to adjust salaries to a sustainable level. We'll lose part (all?) of a season, and the new CBA will include an immediate rollback of salaries.

As far as who to blame for the stoppage, though, there's one simpe fact. There was a highly publicized intention to start negotiations after the all star break. The PA stalled....and stalled....and stalled. All the while claiming they don't have enough financial information to make a proposal, but don't worry, there's common ground and a new deal can be worked out quickly.

Well that turned out to be complete BS. The NHL claims that 25% (I think...about that...didn't fact check the exact number) of the teams are making money....the PA has never refuted this! What the PA has done is dug their heels in and said that they are not going to help fund the creation of 75% of their jobs with a rollback. They will slow the growth of salaries and that's it. It is not a battle they will win, and whatever the compromise is, it could have worked itself out had negotiations started seven months ago.

Donald Fehr took a gamble. He figured if they waited until the summer and held a gun to the league's head they'd have the leverage they need.

You know as well as anyone they could have been talking for the last seven years and they would be in the exact same situation they are in. Deals don't get done because two sides talk forever. Deals get done because the pressure is on. And all the "we were ready to talk all along" and "we are ready to talk, were just waiting on them" is all white noise, PR garbage. That is the easiest statement to make in any public negotiations..."well all we want to do is talk, if that awful other side would just be reasonable and talk with us, we could get this done". That is garbage and I figured you would know that.

And why would you even believe what Bettman says about negotiations anyways? The guy spent years lying about the Phoenix Coyotes when the truth was actually available. What makes you think he isn't full of **** when talking about something that literally nobody but the parties privy to the discussions would be able to call his bluff?

This isn't even about percentages or fundamental issues like the cap anymore. It is personal. Based on the comments, the players are in IDGAF mode. And sure, they may end up accepting a **** deal in the end anyways, but they aren't just going to give Bettman what he asks for right away. They hate Bettman. They hate him even more than your standard Johnny Canuck hate him.

I take nothing the owners/GB says seriously. The same owners who were feverishly trying to sign their key players under this horrible, league destroying, profit crushing CBA are the ones sitting right next to Bettman crying poor and asking for a 17-25% rollback in salary so excuse me if I don't have much respect for their positions, publicly stated or otherwise.

That is absolute bullshit. The idea that progress couldn't have been made from February on is garbage. As well, I'm pretty sure it was Fehr saying, around Christmas time, that negotiations woud start after the all star break. This isn't some post-mortem make-believe Bettman is making up to sling shit at the other side.

Both sides were working within the rules of the CBA, which dictated the term and value of contracts. I don't think many people would argue the direction contracts were heading was good for the game, so there has to be a change.

Last time we lost a season because players wouldn't accept a salary cap. We wound up with a salary cap. This time players don't want to adjust salaries to a sustainable level. We'll lose part (all?) of a season, and the new CBA will include an immediate rollback of salaries.

As far as who to blame for the stoppage, though, there's one simpe fact. There was a highly publicized intention to start negotiations after the all star break. The PA stalled....and stalled....and stalled. All the while claiming they don't have enough financial information to make a proposal, but don't worry, there's common ground and a new deal can be worked out quickly.

Well that turned out to be complete BS. The NHL claims that 25% (I think...about that...didn't fact check the exact number) of the teams are making money....the PA has never refuted this! What the PA has done is dug their heels in and said that they are not going to help fund the creation of 75% of their jobs with a rollback. They will slow the growth of salaries and that's it. It is not a battle they will win, and whatever the compromise is, it could have worked itself out had negotiations started seven months ago.

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1.) Why is the direction of contracts headed a bad thing. None of the league's owners or managers seem to think so, they keep handing out those stupid contracts, so why now do they want to change all that???

2.) How are players salaries not sustainable? They very much are, in EVERY other league players salaries are completely sustainable. In Baseball where teams are free to spend as much as they freely want and players salaries are out of this world, they don't have half the problems the NHL seems to do. The fact is that it's not players salaries, it is the current growth of the NHL that makes players salaries in certain markets unsustainable. When the 2004 season came to an end the Canadian dollar was at 75 cents to the US dollar, since then the Canadian dollar has been above par or at par with the US dollar, So ALL Canadian teams revenues have increased 25% for no other reason than simple economic issues. Combine that with the fact that teams like Chicago and Pittsburgh have gone through a resurgence and are having record revenues, and you have a large segment of teams that are enjoying record revenues(Boston, New York, Kings all enjoying higher revenues), while there are those in markets like Florida, Tampa, Dallas, Phoenix and the former Atlanta whose revenues since the lockout have no where near kept up with the rest of the leauge, hell I would bet my house their revenues haven't even kept up with the change in the Canadian Dollar. What the NHL really needs is enhanced revenue sharing or a luxury tax system, or some way to move some of those revenues from the incredibly strong teams to the weaker ones. The DUMBEST idea is to say to the players that there are a bunch of weak teams in terms of revenue that are getting screwed by traditional markets getting record revenues and that its SOLELY up to the players to shoulder that burden, so why should ALL the players take a GIANT 24% pay cut to support several weak teams in non-traditional markets, all the while teams in Canada and more traditional markets in the states are going to rake in HUGE profits cause of that 24% pay cut. Here's a FACT, the owners proposals have contained ZERO forms of new revenue sharing between teams, even these owners couldn't give a single **** about each others franchise.

3.) One simple fact about who to blame for the lockout? How about that side that lives in ****ing fantasy land. The NHL and NHLPA could have met three years ago and if that was the proposal was the one the NHL gave to the NHLPA we'd still be locked out today. Seriously, the entire NHLs proposal was "Give us all this back and we give you nothing in return", where did you think negotiations were going to go, a negotiation requires both sides give and take, there is no give in the NHLs proposal. If the Owners actually cared about fans and playing hockey they would not have put forward a proposal that on a retard would think was a great idea.

4.) Of course the NHL claims that only a few of it's teams make money, lets go with your 25% of teams, so 8 teams, lets see, the NYR, Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and LA, thats 25% of the league. So you are telling me Chicago, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Washington, Minny and Detroit have all lost money, . When the NHL says they "Lost Money" they actualy haven't lost ****. Heres a peice from Deadspin(there was a corrected error in the article as well it's still not the best source) but the peice shows how most professional sports teams "Lose Money". http://deadspin.com/5816870/exclusi...-7-million-profit-look-like-a-28-million-loss And if you think that is exculsive to the NBA, it's not, ALL professional sports teams do this, it's way to avoid pay additional taxes and keep their franchise values lower than whats reported to again, avoid more taxes.

The owners would personally thank you for buying into the assumption that most of the NHLs teams are failing business that need to rape the players bank accounts and contracts to help right itself without doing anything the might cost the owners more than a cent. With your support most of the owners of the NHL will be able to buy that new Yatch next fall.

FWIW the Penguins have been operating in the red the past couple years, largely because of the new arena...but even then it's been extremely minimal and the team stands to be in the black when not spending millions each year in overages and adding stuff to the arena.

That's one team that's operating in the red of their own volition (needless to say the new arena didn't need to be state-of-the-art everywhere considering that's what caused the arena to come in over-budget...and the team was on the hook for any and everything over the $321 million initial budget).

In the article I linked to it talks about how the Pittsburgh ownership group would be able to write off their purchase price of the frachise, 100% over 15 years, I'm going to guess that probably has a lot to do with the Pens being in the red as well(if they truly are, mostly likely on paper, but most likely actualy made real dollars.).

And again if it was the owners knowing full well they would be on the hook for a certain percentage of what a new stadium would cost and still spent well over that. That is NOT something a player needs to cover, because chances are those expenses are brought back in the way of renting the stadium out for other events other than hockey.

4.) Of course the NHL claims that only a few of it's teams make money, lets go with your 25% of teams, so 8 teams, lets see, the NYR, Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and LA, thats 25% of the league. So you are telling me Chicago, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Washington, Minny and Detroit have all lost money, . When the NHL says they "Lost Money" they actualy haven't lost ****. Heres a peice from Deadspin(there was a corrected error in the article as well it's still not the best source) but the peice shows how most professional sports teams "Lose Money". http://deadspin.com/5816870/exclusi...-7-million-profit-look-like-a-28-million-loss And if you think that is exculsive to the NBA, it's not, ALL professional sports teams do this, it's way to avoid pay additional taxes and keep their franchise values lower than whats reported to again, avoid more taxes.

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LA doesn't make money dude. LA and SJ are poster children for why the current system still isn't working. They sell out most every game and they are not cheap tickets. Yet they can't make money when they are paying to the cap, which you have to do to be competitive in this league.

BTW, the worst thing about the lockout is the stupid **** the players say. "Your tickets are expensive, wouldn't you rather the money goes to us then the owners?" No. "We could get a career ending injury any day." You have a guaranteed contract. Shut up.

**** the Players Association for hiring that ****ing snake Donald Fehr.
**** Donald Fehr for being Donald Fehr. This ****head had no intentions of getting a deal done at any point.

After 2004 I thought there was no way, NO WAY, that this would happen again this ****ing soon. How these two sides could be this completed ****ed in the head to have another lockout right now is just beyond comprehension.

Why can't this league get their **** together? I think they put the best product out there night after night of all the pro sports leagues, yet they are so poorly managed that they are continually the butt of jokes (fairly and unfairly).

LA doesn't make money dude. LA and SJ are poster children for why the current system still isn't working. They sell out most every game and they are not cheap tickets. Yet they can't make money when they are paying to the cap, which you have to do to be competitive in this league.

BTW, the worst thing about the lockout is the stupid **** the players say. "Your tickets are expensive, wouldn't you rather the money goes to us then the owners?" No. "We could get a career ending injury any day." You have a guaranteed contract. Shut up.

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If LA is not making money than the NHL is the most ****ed up league in the world and should just give it up and let someone else run it cause they obviously have no ****ing clue what they are doing. I'd have no problem belieiving that SJ is not making much if any money, but saying they are losing 15 million per year is ****ing laughable. If you are a top teir team in the west, make the playoffs every year and go at least 1,2 or 3 rounds deep every year and still lose 15 million a year, I don't buy it at all.

Again this current system, made by and implemented at the will of the owners. So what, this next system doesn't work by expiration of the next CBA we are gonna demand the players give up another 24%. Lets do something else. Let's leave the system as it is, if the owners don't like losing money then they can sell their teams or do what the guy in Phoenix did and declare bankruptcy and if the players don't like losing jobs then they can start giving up dollars. IMO I don't think we see any teams sold or declare bankruptcy outside of one or two(lol phoenix).

As for the last point, sure players have garaunteed contracts, and for Injury prone ****s like Dipetro, thats fantastic, but for the VAST majority of NHL players they don't have 10 year contracts and a career ending injury is serious business. A serious injury can end a lot of careers and can plague them going forward if they have to find work after hockey, not every player gets to be a scout or assistant of some sort.

I'd be all for the owners if their proposal wasn't so mind bendingly stupid. There was NO REVENUE SHARING in their proposal, things on contract lengths, later UFA, no Arb and the 24% reduction in salary was all designed to make rich teamers more wealthy and make the rest of the teams survivable at best, but will by NO means fix the NHL. What the NHL needs is REAL revenue sharing, or luxury tax or something to move the revenue that a small percentage of the nhl is generating that is making it so difficult for the rest of the NHL. If you are going to make a system where salaries are dependant on revenue, you should probably make sure that 80% of leagues revenues are not made by less than half of your teams.

You don't hear about this in Baseball where the is such a disparity in teams, even teams that are selling less than 5K a game in tickets are not losing money.

EDIT: @Husker, why the hate for Fehr, how long ago was it that Baseball lost an entire season, and now how many have Bettman presided over? Ever since that one season Fehr and Baseball have come to agreement after agreement, IMO its the other half of the arangement that is the problem.

You don't hear about this in Baseball where the is such a disparity in teams, even teams that are selling less than 5K a game in tickets are not losing money.

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Baseball is the biggest joke of a league in this regard. The worst model to follow imaginable. The top teams spend as much as they want and use revenue sharing to make sure there are always plenty of bad teams to beat up on. It's like the first two weeks of college football for a 160 game season. No thanks.

LA doesn't make money dude. LA and SJ are poster children for why the current system still isn't working. They sell out most every game and they are not cheap tickets. Yet they can't make money when they are paying to the cap, which you have to do to be competitive in this league.

BTW, the worst thing about the lockout is the stupid **** the players say. "Your tickets are expensive, wouldn't you rather the money goes to us then the owners?" No. "We could get a career ending injury any day." You have a guaranteed contract. Shut up.

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If LA is not making money than the NHL is the most ****ed up league in the world and should just give it up and let someone else run it cause they obviously have no ****ing clue what they are doing. I'd have no problem belieiving that SJ is not making much if any money, but saying they are losing 15 million per year is ****ing laughable. If you are a top teir team in the west, make the playoffs every year and go at least 1,2 or 3 rounds deep every year and still lose 15 million a year, I don't buy it at all.

Again this current system, made by and implemented at the will of the owners. So what, this next system doesn't work by expiration of the next CBA we are gonna demand the players give up another 24%. Lets do something else. Let's leave the system as it is, if the owners don't like losing money then they can sell their teams or do what the guy in Phoenix did and declare bankruptcy and if the players don't like losing jobs then they can start giving up dollars. IMO I don't think we see any teams sold or declare bankruptcy outside of one or two(lol phoenix).

As for the last point, sure players have garaunteed contracts, and for Injury prone ****s like Dipetro, thats fantastic, but for the VAST majority of NHL players they don't have 10 year contracts and a career ending injury is serious business. A serious injury can end a lot of careers and can plague them going forward if they have to find work after hockey, not every player gets to be a scout or assistant of some sort.

I'd be all for the owners if their proposal wasn't so mind bendingly stupid. There was NO REVENUE SHARING in their proposal, things on contract lengths, later UFA, no Arb and the 24% reduction in salary was all designed to make rich teamers more wealthy and make the rest of the teams survivable at best, but will by NO means fix the NHL. What the NHL needs is REAL revenue sharing, or luxury tax or something to move the revenue that a small percentage of the nhl is generating that is making it so difficult for the rest of the NHL. If you are going to make a system where salaries are dependant on revenue, you should probably make sure that 80% of leagues revenues are not made by less than half of your teams.

You don't hear about this in Baseball where the is such a disparity in teams, even teams that are selling less than 5K a game in tickets are not losing money.

EDIT: @Husker, why the hate for Fehr, how long ago was it that Baseball lost an entire season, and now how many have Bettman presided over? Ever since that one season Fehr and Baseball have come to agreement after agreement, IMO its the other half of the arangement that is the problem.

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Yep, never trust the account of a private business like the NHL or any other leagues. The accounting can be incredibly manipulated to tell whatever story suits their PR.

Lower the floor to let teams spend what earns them a prodit. For some markets, I bet the difference between a $60million and $40million salary team does not get reflected in paid attendance.

You don't hear about this in Baseball where the is such a disparity in teams, even teams that are selling less than 5K a game in tickets are not losing money.

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Baseball is the biggest joke of a league in this regard. The worst model to follow imaginable. The top teams spend as much as they want and use revenue sharing to make sure there are always plenty of bad teams to beat up on. It's like the first two weeks of college football for a 160 game season. No thanks.

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So then for Baseball to work like you want you'd be okay with players having maybe 10-20% total of Baseball related revenue so that teams like KC and whatever could survive and be competitive? The owners are okay with it and so are the players, they players have a free market economy and get what is deemed their value relaitve to their sport, the owners are rarely ever worried about losing money.

Again, if the NHL persists on a model where teams need to spend a certain dollar on players salary and tie salaries to HRR, then they have to balance those revenues between teams that make a TON of revenues (TML) and teams that make NO revenue (PHX). And that is an issue the NHL owners are FAILING to address. They are placing the entire burden (24% of HRR) on the players, and that makes ZERO sense. Because that helps a few teams sure, but why should the incredibly wealthy teams benefit from the teams on the other side of spectrum. The players SHOULD give up some of the HRR, but the teams that are already making lots of money should be willing to move some of the money they get from the players to lesser teams.

Also, for those that don't believe it's the attitude of Bettman, the Owners and hockey Ops within teams that are for this lockout, he's a quote(all be it anonymous) from an NHL executive:

Relevant Quote from Article: When asked – albeit rhetorically – what edge the players might have in this dispute, the executive replied, “None. We took away all of their leverage by canceling the playoffs in 2005. And, we’ll do it again, if we have to.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is your hockey execs. They don't give a damn about getting you a hockey season, they care about winning and crushing the players union, they have learned NOTHING from the last lockout, all they know is they can waste a season, take whatever they want from the players and hopefully people come back to watch. And if they tell the public it's all the players fault because they make to much money, pretty well most people agree with it cause they don't like the fact people are being paid millions to play a game.

You understand the nature of any labor impasse is convincing the other side that you'll last longer than the other side will, right?

A GM saying this is... par for the course. It's how all of these negotiations work. What did you expect him to say? "Well, once the playoffs get near we'll cave to the player demands."?

They learned nothing from the last lockout? No, quite the opposite. They learned that the players will eventually concede. They learned that fans will come back. They learned that the league can continue to grow even after a lost year. The side that hasn't seemed to learn is the players. The lessons from the last lockout were "We can't outlast the owners, but we can likely turn their deal into big money for ourselves anyway". Why they've forgotten THAT lesson is the problem.

You understand the nature of any labor impasse is convincing the other side that you'll last longer than the other side will, right?

A GM saying this is... par for the course. It's how all of these negotiations work. What did you expect him to say? "Well, once the playoffs get near we'll cave to the player demands."?

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Beat me to it. Regardless of what these people actually believe, they have to tow the party line when speaking publicly. The owners side, ultimately 'winning' the last lockout are obviously going to state that fact every chance they get.

I know that each side wants to say they'll last longer. I posted that quote because it shows that the owners have never been wanting to or willing to negotiate in good faith or even put forward a proposal that's beneficial for both sides. The whole point of that quote is just showing the NHLs mentality, they will wait forever to get what deal they want and **** the players. If the players don't cave, we'll be right back here this time next year with a second season on the brink.

They learned nothing from the last lockout? No, quite the opposite. They learned that the players will eventually concede. They learned that fans will come back. They learned that the league can continue to grow even after a lost year. The side that hasn't seemed to learn is the players. The lessons from the last lockout were "We can't outlast the owners, but we can likely turn their deal into big money for ourselves anyway". Why they've forgotten THAT lesson is the problem.

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I don't know about the Fans coming back this time around, Lot of fans in us markets that probably couldn't give the slightest **** if the product leaves, and just as likey to not give a **** when it comes back. How many times can you just shut out your product and expect people to come back? As well all they are both hoping the Canadian dollar continues its current pace and gets a bunch higher. If the Canadian Dollar tanked then I could actually see a reason that teams would need players to take a 24% reduction in salaries.

You don't hear about this in Baseball where the is such a disparity in teams, even teams that are selling less than 5K a game in tickets are not losing money.

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Baseball is the biggest joke of a league in this regard. The worst model to follow imaginable. The top teams spend as much as they want and use revenue sharing to make sure there are always plenty of bad teams to beat up on. It's like the first two weeks of college football for a 160 game season. No thanks.

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If the point of the league is make money though, and if KC can make a profit fielding a $20 million baseball team, the league has achieved its job in the end right? This what this lockout is about, that not enough owners feel they can make a profit. If baseball's system assures profits, then MLB has nothing to apologize for to fans of bad teams.

We are also comparing two different season formats and to be honest, baseball probably only has 4-5 teams that were not been in contention for a playoff spot in September in the last 10 years. Maybe your opinion of baseball would be different if MLB did not water down their playoffs?

If the point of the league is make money though, and if KC can make a profit fielding a $20 million baseball team, the league has achieved its job in the end right?

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The opposing teams also like to make money, too. And in a gate-driven league like the NHL, low-star-power teams are bad draws. It's far easier to sell tickets to a game where star players are coming to town than to sell tickets to a glorified farm team. That's a large part of why there is a cap floor - because every team wants every visiting team to be competitive enough to sell tickets.

(INB4 you mention that the worst road draw last season was the LA Kings - the whole SW was in the bottom half of the league because of extra games against one another in Dal and Pho, and LA games assured low probability of anyone scoring - they were fewest-2 in the league in both goals-for and goals-against).

If the point of the league is make money though, and if KC can make a profit fielding a $20 million baseball team, the league has achieved its job in the end right?

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The opposing teams also like to make money, too. And in a gate-driven league like the NHL, low-star-power teams are bad draws. It's far easier to sell tickets to a game where star players are coming to town than to sell tickets to a glorified farm team. That's a large part of why there is a cap floor - because every team wants every visiting team to be competitive enough to sell tickets.

(INB4 you mention that the worst road draw last season was the LA Kings - the whole SW was in the bottom half of the league because of extra games against one another in Dal and Pho, and LA games assured low probability of anyone scoring).

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Call me skeptical, but I doubt the average fan in Florida is showing up because the visiting team is slightly more competitive. I don't have the access to accurate stats to do a linear regression to test that though but I just doubt it, no offense.

Call me skeptical, but I doubt the average fan in Florida is showing up because the visiting team is slightly more competitive.

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You don't think so?

Florida hosted 2 games against Pittsburgh. Over 18,000 fans at each. Games against the likes of the Jets, Islanders, Senators, Flames, consistently in the 14s-15s. Sure, there are other factors at play too (night of the week, proximity to playoffs, after end of football season) but really, is it news to you that star power attracts fans?

Call me skeptical, but I doubt the average fan in Florida is showing up because the visiting team is slightly more competitive.

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You don't think so?

Florida hosted 2 games against Pittsburgh. Over 18,000 fans at each. Games against the likes of the Jets, Islanders, Senators, Flames, consistently in the 14s-15s. Sure, there are other factors at play too (night of the week, proximity to playoffs, after end of football season) but really, is it news to you that star power attracts fans?

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You used an extreme example. After Pittsburgh and maybe Detroit, I can't see any other team giving a team a noticeable bump in attendance which is why I think the floor makes teams pay far more then what their market supports.

If you loosened the salary floor by $10-15 million, I would bet that gives teams enough wiggle room to make a profit with the average, casual NHL fan in the USA not noticing the difference.

Oh, I agree that the floor needs fixing ( I find it ludicous that the floor was always a fixed dollar amount rather than a fixed percentage from the ceiling... when the last CBA started the cap was 39M and the floor was 23M, when the cap reached 64.3M the floor was 48.3M when if they kept the initial ratio it would have been 37.9M ) - but I do think there does need to be a floor.

There certainly needs to be a floor, the floor works. But again the floor is artificially high for those under earning clubs. Because of how the cap ceiling/floor is tied to league revenues, when you have a certain percentage of teams(low percentage) take in the highest percentage of revenues, it screws over the lower revenue teams because they are using a salary cap floor generated by these high earning teams.

Baseball is the biggest joke of a league in this regard. The worst model to follow imaginable. The top teams spend as much as they want and use revenue sharing to make sure there are always plenty of bad teams to beat up on. It's like the first two weeks of college football for a 160 game season. No thanks.

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Absolutely. Fun fact: MLB wanted a cap *floor* (no ceiling) and Fehr was so ideologically opposed to "caps" that this was a major sticking point and, ultimately, the owners lost on this.

jmo, and it wouldn't work in every league, but baseball might be the CBA poster boy under a high-floor, no ceiling system.

Yep, never trust the account of a private business like the NHL or any other leagues. The accounting can be incredibly manipulated to tell whatever story suits their PR.

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This is the everyman's opinion born from a "you can't fool me with things I don't understand, so I'll be overly cynical about everything" gut reaction. To tell "whatever story suits their PR" requires that the PA has not hired a team of highly skilled and trained financial experts to vet the financial information. The PA is fully armed to dispute any BS financial data the league would throw out there as PR.

I didn't read saga's post (toooo long, bro) so maybe I'm taking you out of context. Sorry if that's the case.

Oh, I agree that the floor needs fixing ( I find it ludicous that the floor was always a fixed dollar amount rather than a fixed percentage from the ceiling... when the last CBA started the cap was 39M and the floor was 23M, when the cap reached 64.3M the floor was 48.3M when if they kept the initial ratio it would have been 37.9M ) - but I do think there does need to be a floor.

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I totally disagree with this idea. Revenue sharing needs to be used to bump that floor, and a more liberal cap (maybe allowing a "franchise player" designation, or some kind of luxury tax). I get that the current system is a farce (there's teams spending garbage money just to meet the floor), but there has to be stronger revenue sharing, a higher ceiling, and some incentive to use shared money wisely among the lower ranked teams.

I don't know how to make that happen, but I'm also not being paid millions to figure it out.

And if the big boys don't like sharing all that money, ask them how they feel about their revenue potential in a twenty team league.

Baseball is the biggest joke of a league in this regard. The worst model to follow imaginable. The top teams spend as much as they want and use revenue sharing to make sure there are always plenty of bad teams to beat up on. It's like the first two weeks of college football for a 160 game season. No thanks.

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Absolutely. Fun fact: MLB wanted a cap *floor* (no ceiling) and Fehr was so ideologically opposed to "caps" that this was a major sticking point and, ultimately, the owners lost on this.

jmo, and it wouldn't work in every league, but baseball might be the CBA poster boy under a high-floor, no ceiling system.

Yep, never trust the account of a private business like the NHL or any other leagues. The accounting can be incredibly manipulated to tell whatever story suits their PR.

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This is the everyman's opinion born from a "you can't fool me with things I don't understand, so I'll be overly cynical about everything" gut reaction. To tell "whatever story suits their PR" requires that the PA has not hired a team of highly skilled and trained financial experts to vet the financial information. The PA is fully armed to dispute any BS financial data the league would throw out there as PR.

I didn't read saga's post (toooo long, bro) so maybe I'm taking you out of context. Sorry if that's the case.

Oh, I agree that the floor needs fixing ( I find it ludicous that the floor was always a fixed dollar amount rather than a fixed percentage from the ceiling... when the last CBA started the cap was 39M and the floor was 23M, when the cap reached 64.3M the floor was 48.3M when if they kept the initial ratio it would have been 37.9M ) - but I do think there does need to be a floor.

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I totally disagree with this idea. Revenue sharing needs to be used to bump that floor, and a more liberal cap (maybe allowing a "franchise player" designation, or some kind of luxury tax). I get that the current system is a farce (there's teams spending garbage money just to meet the floor), but there has to be stronger revenue sharing, a higher ceiling, and some incentive to use shared money wisely among the lower ranked teams.

I don't know how to make that happen, but I'm also not being paid millions to figure it out.

And if the big boys don't like sharing all that money, ask them how they feel about their revenue potential in a twenty team league.

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My profession is not accounting, but it does not mean I cannot rely on the academics who know accounting, or the managers involved in handling of multiple entities under 1 umbrella to make, this claim and me trust their opinion.

Do I believe though that many teams are losing money, in the most basic sense of expenses>revenues, yes. I just don't believe it's in the same amount being reported.

I actually do like the idea of a luxury tax but I think it's unpopular in the hockey world because of it's connection to MLB. I think spending additional money does not improve your hockey team in the same way additional money improves a baseball team. If 1 team wants to overspend and finance lower teams doing so, I'd be all for that inefficiency. I mean, with a luxury cap, how many teams would go over anyway? More or less teams then baseball?

look at pre-cap salaries to determine which teams would spend gross amounts in a less restricted system. a couple of Canadian teams might fall on/off that list, depending on the dollar, etc., but for the most part the list of teams with money hasn't really changed.

your mentors mislead you, then. this is not enron or the mortgage crisis, where things were far too complex for all but a very few to understand. there is not a scarcity of highly skilled financial professionals that can sift through financial data and come up with the right questions. so any great deception would require one of two things: a) the league to flat out lie, or b) the PA to be so incompetent that they never asked the right questions.

both a) and b) are *possible*, but it's naive to assume either is the most likely case.

look at pre-cap salaries to determine which teams would spend gross amounts in a less restricted system. a couple of Canadian teams might fall on/off that list, depending on the dollar, etc., but for the most part the list of teams with money hasn't really changed.

your mentors mislead you, then. this is not enron or the mortgage crisis, where things were far too complex for all but a very few to understand. there is not a scarcity of highly skilled financial professionals that can sift through financial data and come up with the right questions. so any great deception would require one of two things: a) the league to flat out lie, or b) the PA to be so incompetent that they never asked the right questions.

both a) and b) are *possible*, but it's naive to assume either is the most likely case.

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As long as this wiki is accurate, looking back, I'm SHOCKED at how much the Blues were spending. Dallas and Colorado were higher then what I remembered. I knew the Avs were good, but I just didn't remember they were paying top dollar for it.

So if the owners are asking 43% from the 57% that the players are currently getting (plus they wanted HRR change), however in the article theres this "It's complex stuff. But what it comes down to is that when NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr says the players don't really get 57 per cent of HRR, these cost exemptions are what he's talking about. As revenues rise to last season's record of $3.3 billion, the value of those direct costs increases as well because they're all percentage-based. I've seen the NHLPA use 51 per cent as the actual number."

So when the Owners want to go down to 43%, it will actually be less than that because of what the owners are allowed to deduct from HRR. So again, more owners crying poor and misleading people with the 57% number when it isn't actually 57%, though it's probably not 51% either but somewhere inbetween.

So if the owners are asking 43% from the 57% that the players are currently getting (plus they wanted HRR change), however in the article theres this "It's complex stuff. But what it comes down to is that when NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr says the players don't really get 57 per cent of HRR, these cost exemptions are what he's talking about. As revenues rise to last season's record of $3.3 billion, the value of those direct costs increases as well because they're all percentage-based. I've seen the NHLPA use 51 per cent as the actual number."

So when the Owners want to go down to 43%, it will actually be less than that because of what the owners are allowed to deduct from HRR. So again, more owners crying poor and misleading people with the 57% number when it isn't actually 57%, though it's probably not 51% either but somewhere inbetween.

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And on the other side of the journalistic integrity coin you have got Darren Dreger talking about how the NHL managed without Gretzky and Mario, they can manage without Ovehckin (ignoring of course the obvious fact that Mario and Wayne never left for a different league during what should be the prime of their careers).

*I don't actually have a source for the Dreger comment, I got it from someone on hfboards who said they paraphrased him from a TV comment.

lol, right, because players were really suffering under that definition of HRR. I think you're totally missing Elliot's point, if all you get from that is the owners are somehow being deceptive about the 57%. That's not the point, _at all_. It's not like HRR is some mysterious, unknown quantity. Players are getting exactly 57% of HRR as agreed to and defined.

So what...they're getting less than 57% of some irrelevant number, so owners = lying bastards? Yeah...not Elliot's point.

there's nothing wrong with rich owners getting richer, pinko. if players think it's all bubblegum and rainbows, they're welcome to invest their millions in sports arenas and hockey franchises when they retire.

So what...they're getting less than 57% of some irrelevant number, so owners = lying bastards? Yeah...not Elliot's point.

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I'm confused, so you are saying they are getting 57%, but then you say they are not. Fact 1, they are NOT getting exactly 57%, Owners are allowed to deduct certain expenses from that 57%, so part of the point is that owners are lying, they are NOT giving 57% to the players. Not the entire point, sure, but still a point.

LOL, Invest Millions in Sports Arena's, most arena's are built will largely PUBLIC money, OUR tax dollars, look at that bumbling idiot in Edmonton, he's rejected the current frame work for the new downtown arena, cause he wants to contribute LESS and the tax payers MORE. THOSE OWNERS ARE SO HARD DONE BY. While at the same time as contributing less to the arena, he wants more of the other revenues generated form the arena as well(concerts/live events) and to have an exclusive argreement so that Rexall can't have any events. These guys hardly invest any of their actual money and instead take large amounts of public money to house their teams and then use their team as a tax write off from their real business. Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for them at all for having to actually pay people.